Alternate Best Actor 2002: Greg Kinnear in Auto Focus

Greg Kinnear did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Bob Crane in Auto Focus.

Auto Focus tells the life story of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane.

Auto Focus is one of the many films by Paul Schrader depicting a man living on a kind of a razor's edge, This being unique in the story is built around a at one time particularly public figure in Bob Crane. At the center of it we have some brilliant casting in Greg Kinnear in the lead role. This is as Greg Kinnear is a particularly earnest performer which is an ideal match for Bob Crane who was much the same. This creates an ease in creating really what is first the public persona that Bob Crane was initially known for. This being sort of the 50's easy going any man. Kinnear has this done pat of course as his own manner and delivery is with that same casual seeming sincerity. Kinnear from the outset does something important in creating the right hint of nuance in creating Bob Crane the star and Bob Crane the man even in a wholly public situation. This as Crane wasn't exactly a great actor and in the brief performance scene Kinnear emphasizes just the breezy easy going quality. This is similar, though not exactly the same, as we see Bob at home with his first wife (Rita Wilson). Kinnear emphasizes a sort of straight forward gee whiz early 60's straight forward sitcom dad. He doesn't overplay it though finding the right sort of place as this being the guy in a way in the way he speaks and his general manner. This as basically his foundation as a person in terms of his behavior, affected to a degree, though not to the degree as Hogan. This in showing the man created by expectation which Kinnear plays well with that earnestness of his as is basically who Crane technically is, but only as a sort of general presentation of self.

Kinnear handles this setup well creating the right balance in giving us the sitcom guy, from a certain sitcom era, though with enough of a sense of reality beneath the surface, that beneath that the film will come to explore. This begins as Kinnear meets video equipment specialist John Henry Carpenter (Willem Dafoe) who introduces him to the world of strip clubs...as a starter. I think the exploration of is where the essential element of Kinnear's performance, that really twists the film in a certain way, an effective way for this story. This as Kinnear doesn't portray his typical manner as this facade, but rather the way the man goes through life. This in not being overly charming, or overly anything else. Rather he presents a man who just gets by at being likable enough. Kinnear playing the part earnestly as this, that in turn actually creates a particularly disturbing quality as Crane begins to engage in this underbelly. This as Kinnear plays this with the same earnestness despite technically the extreme contrast it holds against the seemingly wholesome image his presence suggests. This is to the point he even recounts these initial visits to his priest, not as a confession, with the same wry smile. Kinnear portrays it appropriately in turn as this compulsion within Crane. Although moments of hesitation are there, Kinnear depicts these moments not as breaking exactly a facade but rather the man experiencing life as himself. The disconnect being found between the values of the life and the way the man seems to present himself. Kinnear makes it unnerving by portraying just as the public saw him, but in turn we see what he was doing outside of that public life.

Kinnear in turn shows as Crane goes further into the life, which involves affairs, orgies, pornography and sex tapes, we see a man who largely isn't battling against himself, more of the image we have of him. This in presenting the confidence of self in any of these scenarios, and makes the juxtaposition created by this quietly disturbing. This amplified by Kinnear's performance as he plays Crane so purely this even as the man names every euphemism for breasts and how he loves him, he delivers as he would selling a commercial in a carefree commercial. Crane's descent then is a little atypical for a Schrader film, though it still shows a man falling off that edge as expected, the nature of it is a bit different as realized in Kinnear's performance. This as Kinnear strictly portrays Crane as lacking in self-awareness regarding the duality of his life. This as his compulsion pushes him, which Kinnear as earnestly depicts as a fixation towards sex, however at the same time without the sense of what this really means for how others perceive him. What we see though is the sort of separation becomes all the thinner. Again though in Kinnear's performance it never is as two men, but rather his fixation bleeds into his persona. Kinnear delivers with this the sense of desperation in the man both in granting a sense of exasperation in his eyes but also a frustrated physical manner. This as Kinnear still projects a man who thinks he can get by that casual confidence of his though even as his vices become all the more apparent. This as Kinnear's performance becomes grotesque for a lack of a better word. Not grotesque in way that breaks the reality of the man, but rather expresses the oddity of this guy who thinks he can just give an easy smile, while everything else about him expresses an intense anxiety and dissatisfaction with his life. "Hogan" merges with the sex crazed man in Kinnear's work that again is unnerving by granting something genuine to the seeming contradiction. Again this has a particular power through Kinnear's own presence, that makes a man who complains about dirty jokes and talks about editing sex tapes in front of son in the same sentence honest. In turn his descent doesn't involve a revelation rather the lack of one. This as we see Crane belittle his partner-in-crime Carpenter, it is with that same unshakable confidence in Kinnear's even as the rest of the man seems in a state of deterioration. Kinnear delivers a terrific performance here not by only subverting his presence or even Crane's, but rather merging that contradiction that creates the unusual downfall of the man.